THEN and NOW 


A JUSTIFICATION 
OF OUR REPUBLIC 


by 

Isabel Simeral Johnson, M.A., Ph.D. 

a 



Published by the 

BETTER AMERICA FEDERATION 

724 South Spring St. 

Los Angeles, Cal. 


25c a copy — 






















THEN AND NOW 

A JUSTIFICATION OF OUR REPUBLIC 

by 

Isabel Simeral Johnson, M.A., Ph.D. 






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V,/ 


Transferred 

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CongW 


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Copyrighted, 1923 
by 

ISABEL SIMERAL JOHNSON 

This pamphlet has been copyrighted solely for the purpose of 
preventing its reproduction or use in unauthorized ways. It may be 
freely quoted from by the Press, provided due acknowledgment is 
given to the Better America Federation. 





By Transfer 

Dopt. of Stats 

MAR 1 8 193$ 


FOREWORD 

f I 'HIS little review of an early period of our history, 
**• appeared in part, as a serial in “Saturday Night.” Those 
chapters have been revised and re-written. To some 
readers it may seem quite unnecessary to bring forward 
another compilation of the story of how our great docu¬ 
ment of liberties came into being. When, however, one 
sees the flood of radical literature reeking with misstate¬ 
ment and misrepresentation which is poured upon us, no 
apology is necessary for reminding ourselves once more of 
the scope, meaning and proved success of our own unparal¬ 
leled Constitution. 

There is practically no socialistic or communistic theory 
advocated today which has not been repeatedly tried, wholly 
or in part, in some portion of the world. There is not one 
of these trials which has been successful. Contrast them 
with the century and a half of uninterrupted growth, devel¬ 
opment and progress which our nation has enjoyed. No 
such record as that of the United States under the Constitu¬ 
tion, has ever been written on the pages of history at any 
time or under any other system of government. 

One of our chief sources of misunderstanding is our 
loose use of the word “Democracy.” The United States is 
not and never has been a “Democracy” in the original and 
strict construction of the word, and it is to be hoped that 
it never will be. It is a “Republic.” The word “democ¬ 
racy” in its exact interpretation, means a government where 
the supreme power is retained and exercised directly by the 


4 


Foreword 


people. The word “republic” means a government where 
the supreme power is retained by the people who exercise 
that power through representatives elected by them. The 
word “democratic” adds to the confusion for it has both a 
political meaning and a social interpretation. In the latter 
use it symbolizes a belief in equal opportunity for all , a 
very different thing from its political significance. When 
to these two uses we add a third, to designate a certain polit¬ 
ical organization, it is not surprising that men subscribe to 
what they do not believe and say what they do not mean. 
Shall we not train ourselves to use these two words “Democ¬ 
racy” and “Republic,” in their strict and exact meaning? 

The demagogue plays always on the ignorance of his 
audience. If we can ourselves, keep in mind the basic facts 
of our history and the spirit of our government—if we are 
actuated by knowledge and not by emotion, if we see to it 
that our children are fully grounded in the principles that 
underlie our Republic, we can rest confident that our glo¬ 
rious birthright will never be sold for a mess of pottage. 

I. S. J. 

Los Angeles, California, Jan., 1924. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Introduction page 

Chapter I. —Conditions at the Close of the 

Revolution. 11 

Chapter II. —Efforts at F ederation. 14 

Chapter III. —Efforts at Federation (Continued) 

and the Obstacles Encountered. . .17 

Chapter IV. —The Critical Years— 1783-1789.21 

Chapter V. —The Constitutional Convention and 

Certain of Its Personnel. 25 

Chapter VI. —Makers of the Constitution. 29 

Chapter VII. —The Completed Document.33 

Chapter VIII. —The Completed Document (Continued) 36 
Chapter IX. —Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 


-1790-1890.40 

Chapter X. —Danger Signs. 50 
















INTRODUCTION 


UMR never writes finis to anything. No matter how just 
* * the cause or how victorious the outcome, war brings 
in its train a dreary aftermath of serious problems and grave 
difficulties. When the tumult and the shouting die and the 
excitement is over, questions which neither defeat nor vic¬ 
tory have answered, crises which the struggle itself has pre¬ 
cipitated, new situations for which experience furnishes no 
precedent, confront men, weary of public affairs and eager 
to return to the simpler pursuits of private and personal 
life. And these new difficulties are heaped upon the ever¬ 
present problems of normal, social and political develop¬ 
ment. There has never been a post-war period which was 
not a time “to try men’s souls.” 

The trials we are now experiencing are not all new in 
human experience. Reread the history of the years immedi¬ 
ately after the war of 1812 and after the Civil War. Men 
have met and conquered greater difficulties than these within 
the boundaries and the history of our own beloved land. But 
all our material progress, all the industrial development, 
all the weapons which the so-called “democratization” of 
government have forged, do not seem to give us any appar¬ 
ent advantage over our Revolutionary forefathers in solving 
these problems promptly, permanently and justly. 

On all sides barkers may be heard crying this or that pan¬ 
acea for social and political ills. “Try Single Tax”; “Try 
Government Insurance”; “Let the State own and control all 
Public Utilities,” etc., etc. The Initiative and the Referen¬ 
dum enable citizens of many states (twenty having both 
Initiative and Referendum and two others the Referendum 
only) to legislate on every conceivable subject quite inde- 


8 


Introduction 


pendently of their knowledge. But even this privilege has 
not solved anything yet nor is there any evidence that it 
ever will. 

Is it not time to ask ourselves thoughtfully, whether the 
trouble lies in the nature of our government or with our 
methods of conducting it? Do the fundamental principles 
underlying this Republic merit criticism or condemnation, 
or only the administration of those principles? 

When politicians supplant statesmen; when our universi¬ 
ties frequently offer to inexperienced, emotional, hot-headed 
youth (our youth whose earlier education provides practi¬ 
cally no training in independent thinking, in the weighing 
and sifting of ideas), social and political theories that are 
like dynamite in the hands of babes; when the ablest, most 
successful and most high-minded citizens decline to give of 
themselves and their time to the service of their country; 
when the enthusiastically ignorant are determined to legis¬ 
late on every subject under the sun and direct the science 
of government (for it is a science), is it any wonder that 
the ship of state threads a dangerous passage among reefs 
and shoals? 

Before we depart entirely from the representative prin¬ 
ciples upon which the government of the Republic of the 
United States was founded, it might be well if only in 
curiosity, to remind ourselves under what conditions the 
founders of this government labored, what the nature of 
their problems was, and how they met them. At a time 
when emphasis is always on the experimental and the novel, 
we can afford to remember with Daniel Webster, that some¬ 
times, “what is valuable is not new, and what is new is not 
valuable.” It is possible that conditions in the Twentieth 
Century may not be so fundamentally different from those 
in the Eighteenth as material and industrial progress would 
suggest. 


Introduction 


9 


It may be that when we analyze the real nature of the 
industrial and material progress made since the establish¬ 
ment of our Constitution, we shall find that the spectacular 
and principal element in it is that of time,—that all these 
material and industrial developments have simply speeded 
up our civilization,—they could not alter and they have not 
changed the fundamental principles underlying our govern¬ 
ment. Those fundamental principles should be no more 
affected by the speeding up of our civilization and the more 
widely and generally diffused knowledge of the “other fel¬ 
low,” than the franchise should be affected by the estab¬ 
lishment of the voting machine. 

In any case it can do no harm to re-examine the period 
when the men, who made our nation met and formulated 
the document which Pitt, the English statesman, declared to 
be “the wonder and admiration of all future generations 
and the model of all future constitutions.” 

If the Constitution of our United States is out of date 
and outworn, if it no longer meets our needs and our desires, 
the proof must be almost self-evident. And if this charter 
of liberties is to be discarded, it should be done with eyes 
open and with minds thoroughly informed. The problems 
of government which its authors had to solve, the conditions 
with which they had to deal, the methods by which they 
met each difficulty, the compromises which they suggested, 
should all be objects of study and food for thought. In 
politics as well as in business it is well at times to take 
stock. If we are to go pioneering in government, we want 
to be certain that our new trails lead straight to a desired 
goal. These little historical resumes are offered as remind¬ 
ers of the trails already blazed. 



THEN AND NOW 


CHAPTER I 


CONDITIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION 



HE War of the American Revolution was ended. The 


A Colonial Period, the first great epoch of our history, was 
over. The Colonists, goaded by an insane king and his 
irresponsible ministers, had taken the final step and cut the 
cord which bound them to their mother country. Now, 
exhausted physically and financially they faced the necessity 
of carrying on the war and of forming a nation of their 
own. The Declaration of Independence had absolved them 
from allegiance to England, but the larger task remained. 

For seven years these little groups of determined men, 
differing widely in type and economic interests, ignored 
their differences and stood together, resolved that no longer 
should a government 3,000 miles away, over the trackless 
Atlantic, hamper their progress and exploit their pros¬ 
perity. They sacrificed individual interests for a common 
purpose. They bore the crudest of hardships, they knew 
bodily suffering, discouragement and defeat. With un¬ 
shaken will they had won through to independence and 
now with costly victory attained, they confronted a labor 
greater even than the war—the most far-reaching and for¬ 
midable undertaking that ever men had faced—the forming 
of a nation of freemen. 

Their task was the more difficult because of their many 



12 


Then and Now 


differences, differences which the fundamental bonds be¬ 
tween them only exaggerated. Anglo-Saxon blood pre¬ 
dominated in all the thirteen states, and in that blood were 
all the traditions of the “rights of Englishmen.” Indeed 
these hardy colonists began the war as Englishmen defend¬ 
ing rights wrested from oppressors through the centuries 
and now threatened again by a mad king and his stupid 
counselors. In the beginning, few either desired or sought 
complete independence of England. To most, the idea was 
obnoxious. The majority expected, when permanent recog¬ 
nition of their rights had been secured, to continue their 
existence as colonists under the dominion of Great Britain. 
They were only seeking to maintain Constitutional govern¬ 
ment supreme over individual government. We frequently 
forget that Pitt, Burke and Fox were waging the same 
struggle in the English Parliament for the “rights of En¬ 
glishmen,” as the American colonists so far away, and for 
that reason watched with deep sympathy the successful 
progress of events across the Atlantic. 

With their Anglo-Saxon blood were other ties, however, 
which united these little states. All of them based their 
management of local government affairs on English Com¬ 
mon Law. They all believed in freedom from oppressive 
taxation and from large standing armies. They all 
demanded freedom of press and speech and jury trial. They 
insisted that popular assemblies should have control of the 
public purse. But even during the war these bonds were 
strained at times and only their common purpose as free¬ 
men held them together. 

The colonists of the north were Puritan in stock and 
religion, men hard on themselves and on each other. The 
southern Colonies, notably Virginia and the Carolinas, in¬ 
habited by planters, often rich and usually easy going, with 
a comparatively large slave population, presented a marked 


The Close of the Revolution 


13 


contrast. The majority of these colonists were Episcopa¬ 
lians. In the North, Harvard College was founded as early 
as 1636 and by 1650 a compulsory public school system 
was established. In the South no move for general educa¬ 
tion was made at all before the late eighteenth century. 
Colonists of the North were usually fishermen or traders, 
while those of the south were mostly agriculturalists. The 
middle colonies, between the Hudson and the Potomac 
shared in the geographical, social and economic characteris¬ 
tics of both North and South. 

All of the thirteen states were isolated one from another. 
The only possible methods of travel were by stage, horse¬ 
back or boat, all expensive and wearisome. They had no 
telegraph, no telephone, no railroads, no easy method of 
communication whatever. What wonder then if they devel¬ 
oped individuality at the expense of mutual understanding 
and sympathy? Their boundaries had been matters for 
dispute—the necessary appropriation of men and money 
for common protection from the Indians, a source of petty 
jealousy. 

To these elements of dissension was added disaffection in 
the presence in the colonies of the “Loyalists” or “Tories,” 
—those who had refused to believe that the colonies were 
justified in recourse to war against their mother country 
and who aided the armies of King George against their 
fellow colonists. 

And now the war was over—a nation must be formed. 
From discordant elements, harmony must be produced, from 
individualism, unity must be developed, from chaos, order 
must come. And how it came is the most inspiring and 
important chapter in the entire history of our United States. 


CHAPTER II 


EFFORTS AT FEDERATION 

A I A HE thirteen little states had severed for all time the polit- 

A ical ties, binding them to their island mother. Inward 
fears must have disturbed those intrepid spirits when they 
took the final step and assumed full responsibility for the 
future of this loved new land. Few, even of the colonists, 
had thought that there would be a complete break with 
England. The English Commons, even those who sympa¬ 
thized with the rebellion, believed that the bitter commercial 
rivalry and the boundary disputes, always present among 
the colonies, would prevent any attempt at a permanent 
union among them. And of course, a break with England 
would necessitate some kind of union at home. But in Jan¬ 
uary, 1776, there appeared from a Philadelphia press, a little 
book, whose author’s service to America has been little 
recognized. This was a little pamphlet called, “Common 
Sense,” written by Thomas Paine,* the English-Quaker 
friend of Franklin. “Let a continental conference be held 
to frame a continental charter or charter of the United 
Colonies. All men, whether in England or America, con¬ 
fess that a separation will take place between the countries 
at one time or other. To find out that very time, we do 
not have to go far, for that time hath found us. The 
present, likewise, is that peculiar time which never hap¬ 
pens to a nation but once—the time of forming itself into 

♦See Gamaliel Bradford’s “Damaged Souls” for an excellent article 
on Paine. 



Efforts at Federation 


15 


a government. Nothing can settle our affairs so expedi¬ 
ently as an open and determined declaration for inde¬ 
pendence.” Sentiment was crystallized and six months 
later the pealing bell rang out the tidings of the birth of a 
new nation. 

But troubles had only begun. Thirteen contentious years 
passed before any real union was evolved among these little 
groups, whose close association was due largely to the force 
of outside circumstances. Thirteen tumultuous and chaotic 
years elapsed after the break with England before the first 
President of our Republic, serving under the Constitution of 
the United States, took his oath of office. 

Union had been discussed among the states. There had 
been sketchy, temporary and abortive attempts among the 
colonies, even before the Revolution. In the 1600’s some of 
the New England colonies, as well as some of the southern 
settlements, formed very temporary unions against danger¬ 
ous or infringing neighbors. One of the English Kings, 
James II, had thought well of bringing all the colonies 
under one English Governor. William Penn wanted a plan 
of union adopted for commercial advantage and mutual pro¬ 
tection, but the English government would not give its con¬ 
sent. Benjamin Franklin had another scheme for unifica¬ 
tion, but England treated the proposal with scorn. In 1765, 
however, an American Congress was proposed by Massa¬ 
chusetts, and nine of the colonies sent representatives to 
New York. Nothing was accomplished toward permanent 
union, but much was done to develop sentiment against 
British coercion. (This was the famous Stamp Act Con¬ 
gress. ) 

The first truly representative Congress, a real American 
Congress—a Continental Congress—met in Philadelphia at 
the suggestion of Virginia in the fall of 1774. All the 
states except Georgia were represented, and the committees 


16 


Then and Now 


drew up a petition of grievances to present to George III, a 
petition, the stubborn king refused to accept. In this Con¬ 
gress were the Adamses of Massachusetts, the silver-tongued 
Patrick Henry, Roger Sherman and others of immortal 
name. Here, too, was proposed the first colonial boycott of 
English goods. The colonists knew well how vulnerable is 
the pocketbook. These local committees of correspondence, 
representing their respective colonies, assumed the job of 
surveillance. A man who refused to agree to boycott 
English goods was very likely to see his name published as 
unpatriotic. Any colony who refused to enter into this 
“Association” for boycott, was to be regarded as hostile to 
the “liberties of this country.” Then, as always in time of 
great danger, the spirit of coercion began to run throughout 
the states. 

It must be remembered that this First Continental Congress 
was in no sense a Congress as we understand it today. There 
was no spiritual unity. There was simply an acting together 
under stress of danger. The colonies had begun to live in 
a married state, although they were married in no true sense 
of the word. They had no distinct unity of purpose. 

This little group of representatives adjourned, having 
elected delegates, who were to assemble in May of 1775. 
We will now see how the course of events forced them into 
a semblance of unity, which finally became real. 


CHAPTER III 


EFFORTS AT FEDERATION (Continued) AND THE 
OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED 

^ I A HE Second Continental Congress, made up at first like 
its predecessor, of representative committees from all the 
thirteen states, except Georgia, met, as had been agreed, in 
May of 1775. It was less than a month after the “embattled 
farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.” 
British regulars and the rustic militia of Massachusetts had 
clashed and marked Concord and Lexington forever. 

The little group was a government only in name. It had 
neither power to make nor to execute laws. It could neither 
tax, borrow nor appoint. It had jurisdiction over nothing. 
All that its members might legally do was to take counsel 
among themselves. But hostilities had opened and some one 
had to act. These delegates from the twelve states, for 
Georgia still held herself aloof, included Franklin and 
Washington, R. H. Lee, the Adamses, Clinton, Jay and Liv¬ 
ingston, all men of judgment, of vision, of initiative. They 
first borrowed six thousand pounds to buy powder for the 
first “Continental army”; they declared war on England; 
they elected George Washington, Commander-in-Chief, but 
they were no government. They had no revenue, they could 
enforce no decree. They had neither executive nor judicial 
departments, they had no regularly enlisted army; but the 
necessity of war was supreme. It was an emergency govern¬ 
ment deriving its only authority from popular acquiescence. 

Independence followed and dark days of English success, 


18 


Then and Now 


days when starvation and mutiny faced the little undis¬ 
ciplined army. It was plainly evident that some kind of 
real union must be evolved, some kind of Constitution pre¬ 
pared. Franklin, who had always longed for colonial 
union, now an old man of nearly seventy, prepared “Articles 
of Confederation and Perpetual Union” in 1775, but only 
on the 4th of July of 1776 were matters brought to a head. 

On motion of Lee of Virginia in the Congress, a com¬ 
mittee was made up of one delegate from each of the 
colonies (Georgia had come into the Congress in July) and 
was empowered to draw up a “plan of confederation and 
transmit it to the Colonies for their consideration and appro¬ 
bation.” This Committee prepared the Articles of Con¬ 
federation and Congress approved them in November, 1777, 
but it was not until March, 1781, only seven months before 
the surrender of Cornwallis, that Maryland, the thirteenth 
colony, ratified this first official document, forming a union 
of the states. 

Why had it taken three and a half years for the thirteen 
little states to agree on such simple terms of union? They 
were like petty, narrow-minded human beings, fearful of 
relinquishing a jot of power for the general advantage and 
jealous of forfeiting the slightest authority to a central 
government. But Maryland builded far better than she 
knew in her selfish delay. This delay worked, in the long 
run, to tremendous good. Six of the states, Virginia, Mas¬ 
sachusetts, Connecticut, Georgia and the Carolinas, claimed 
all territory lying between the Alleghany Mountains and the 
Mississippi River, because their old colonial charters fixed 
no limits to their western boundaries. The western boun¬ 
dary lines of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, how¬ 
ever, were very clearly and definitely fixed in their charters 
and Maryland resented her disadvantage. She refused to 
sign the Articles of Confederation until the states terri- 


Efforts at Federation 


19 


torially favored in their charters (by an unfixed western 
boundary limit) had agreed to give up to the United States, 
all claims to territory west of the Alleghanies, a territory to 
be held in trust for the benefit of all the country, to be 
known as a national domain. How the ownership of this 
land helped to save the endangered embryo union after 
peace was declared, will he seen later. 

But the Articles of Confederation formed only an experi¬ 
ment in government, not a real and effective government. 
The so-called union could levy no taxes of any kind—all 
financial support was dependent on requisitions made on the 
states in ratio to their tax-paying population and it could 
not enforce these requisitions if a state refused to honor 
them. It had some high-sounding privileges, such as regu¬ 
lating foreign dealings and matters concerning the Indian 
tribes. It was permitted to maintain an army and navy for 
protection—but it had absolutely no revenues of its own to 
do anything with. As one historian puts it, “the Congress 
of the Articles of Confederation was but a board of advice 
and its advice could be ignored with impunity.” 

Happily, however, each colony contained a few men who 
prove beyond argument the absurdity of the contention that 
all men are created equal. How they stand out above the 
multitude, Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, the Lees, the 
Adamses, Morris, Schuyler and Gadsden, Jefferson, Knox 
and Greene—able, high-minded, far-seeing, unselfish, active, 
influential. Of themselves and their resources, they gave 
without limit. When their individual states were slow in 
aiding the common needs, these men stirred them to their 
duty. They compelled their fellow citizens to ignore pro¬ 
vincial state differences and petty personal considerations, 
in a harmonious, common effort. The mass of colonists was 
like the mass everywhere and always, then and now, much 
absorbed in their personal needs and those of their imme- 


20 


Then and Now 


diate communities, at times splendidly progressive when the 
personal initiative of a few had shown the way, hut utterly 
incapable of themselves and in mass, of initiating progress 
for the common welfare and the general good. 

The weakness of this Confederation was soon manifest. 
Of the difficulties that followed when peace was signed in 
1783 and the chaos that threatened the very existence of the 
states, of the almost insurmountable difficulties, the follow¬ 
ing chapter will treat. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE CRITICAL YEARS—1783-1789 

P EACE had come. Eight years from that day when Con¬ 
cord re-echoed with the first shots of the American Revo¬ 
lution, Congress proclaimed to the army that war was at an 
end. The American Commissioners sent to Paris to settle 
the terms of the peace had secured practically all they 
wanted from their vanquished enemy. All the territory 
south of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes and extending 
from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River, now 
belonged to the United States of America. Confiscated 
estates of “Loyalist” or “Tory” colonists, who had taken up 
arms against their fellow countrymen, remained in the pos¬ 
session of the new nation. On a raw, bleak day, December 
4th, 1783, at the old Fraunce’s Tavern, still running as a 
restaurant, near the Battery in New York City, Washington 
bade farewell to his officers and retired to Mt. Vernon there 
to live, he hoped, as a private citizen. But he was too sorely 
needed to be allowed to remain undisturbed, pursuing his 
private affairs. 

The most wearying and the most critical times that the 
country was to see for a hundred years and more, had only 
just begun. Enemies within one’s own household—jealousy, 
suspicion, excessive individualism and quarrelsomeness 
among the members of one’s own family—even if it be a 
political family, are infinitely more to be dreaded than an 
outside antagonist. The new world now entered upon a 
six years which Fiske well calls the “Critical Period of 
American History.” 


22 


Then and Now 


We have seen that the Articles of Confederation provided 
no real government and many times in these six years there 
seemed little hope of saving this feeble, impotent union. 
Congress, the symbol of union, was flouted by the states as 
they pleased. Even the Peace Commisssioners at Paris 
disobeyed Congress and acted as they deemed best in for¬ 
mulating peace terms. When peace was signed and the 
colonists turned back to the pursuits of earlier days, all the 
old commercial rivalries, all the former, bitter boundary dis¬ 
putes revived in full vigor, and new quarrels arose over the 
cession of newly acquired territory, over exports and import 
tariffs, over inter-colonial trade, over everything that could 
possibly be a source of disagreement. The very existence of 
the new nation was threatened. Then, as in every crisis in 
history, it was the wisdom of the few which saved the nation 
and brought order out of chaos. 

No government can function without money—it is essen¬ 
tial there as everywhere. Under the Articles, Congress had 
no taxing power, but was entirely dependent upon requisi¬ 
tions on the states. If a state did not feel like honoring the 
requisition, Congress had no way of enforcing its demands. 
When Congress sought to pay the war debt as it had agreed, 
albeit without distinct authority, to do—Georgia, Delaware 
and South Carolina paid no heed to the request for funds. 
The financial weakness of this “government by supplica¬ 
tion,” as Gouverneur Morris called it, was but one of its 
frailties. It had no common, federal money system. Each 
state issued money of varying standards as it saw fit and in 
any amount it chose. In New England the shilling was 
worth about one-fourth of a dollar, while in some of the 
southern states it was worth about one-tenth. Paper money 
was issued with practically no limit. Loans and contracts 
made in one state or another were likely to he invalidated 
at any minute by some capricious piece of legislation. Con- 


The Critical Years— 1783-1789 


23 


gress had no control of tariffs on exports and imports. Each 
state levied the amount it thought best or nothing at all. 
There was suspicion and fear in every one of the states that 
some other state might win advantage. England had refused 
to deal with American shipping, and when Massachusetts 
and two other New England States angered at this dis¬ 
criminating legislation, closed their ports to British shipping, 
Connecticut, their close neighbor, threw hers wide open and 
placed a tax on all imports from a neighbor state. New 
York and Rhode Island behaved as selfishly and badly as the 
pettiest of human beings could do. In Rhode Island with 
the shipping, the carrying and the fishing industries almost 
crushed, there was so little activity, or even apparent effort, 
that as one man says, “nothing was running except the 
bars.” And what could this timorous, powerless body, 
Congress, do in the face of such conditions? It had no 
executive power, no courts, no money of its own, and no 
credit anywhere. 

Naturally there was no more respect abroad than at home 
for this pseudo government. When Congress was unable to 
pay the war debt as it had agreed, England made it the 
excuse for holding the lucrative fur trading posts of the 
Northwest, part of her cession to the United States, and Con¬ 
gress could do nothing about it. Europe scarcely took the 
trouble to veil its contempt. In Paris, Jefferson was told 
blandly that there was no use in France making agreements 
with the United States, for the States could not fulfill them. 

Mohammedan pirates of the North African States levied 
blackmail on any of our ships that ventured to sail the 
Mediterranean. New Orleans’ Spanish Governor announced 
to the frontiersmen along the Mississippi River that they 
might have free use of the river if they would renounce 
allegiance to the United States and recognize Spain as their 
government. 


24 


Then and Now 


Physical suffering added its complications. War brought 
extreme poverty to certain sections of the states. The source 
of much former wealth, in the carrying trade with England 
and the West Indies and the great fishing industry, was prac¬ 
tically gone. The usual ghouls of food speculators added 
their efforts to the general misery. Riots were common in 
the States. In Massachusetts, during Shay’s rebellion, a fed¬ 
eral arsenal was attacked, but even there Congress dared 
take no action of repression. In New England threats of 
secession were heard and in some places a desire for return 
to monarchical government was whispered about. Every¬ 
where ran the spirit of suspicion, of enmity, of commercial 
rivalry and hostility. Anarchy threatened. On only one 
thing could the states agree. Something had to be done. 
The “Something” was done and the embryo nation was 
saved. 


CHAPTER V 


THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND CERTAIN 
OF ITS PERSONNEL 

l\yf ARYLAND, you remember, had been the last of the 
v A colonies to sign the Articles of Confederation, refus¬ 
ing to do so until the six states which had unfixed western 
boundaries had agreed to cede their land lying between the 
Alleghanies and the Mississippi to the “United States of 
America.” So this fragile, wobbly, unstable, poverty-struck, 
little union owned a vast amount of valuable land and in 
some way or other it had to be administered. The states could 
not take back the land they had ceded and if the “United 
States” had a “national domain,” it had to have some money 
to run it. It was this situation, handled with skill by a few 
wise and far-sighted patriots, that made our real union, the 
union for which men fought and died, possible. Settlers were 
pouring in vast numbers into this wonderfully rich land, 
which lay between the mountains and the vast waters of the 
Mississippi. Spain controlled New Orleans, the outlet of the 
great river, and did all in her power to annoy and harass 
these settlers in their use of its waters. They appealed to 
the “United States” for protection of their interests, but the 
Federal government had no money to finance protection, and 
no way to get any. This was one of many complications. 
It had been proposed to permit Congress to levy and collect 
a tax on all imports into the country, but New York was 
making too much money herself in this way to give it up for 
the general good, and as the consent of all the states was 


26 


Then and Now 


requisite to amend the Articles, that plan fell through. It 
was Washington, who conceived a way out of the difficulty. 
He saw that the Potomac River was the natural means of 
access to the western lands. He knew, however, that what 
affected the Potomac River, affected not only his own state, 
Virginia, but Maryland and Pennsylvania. He therefore 
proposed to the Virginia Legislature that a meeting of the 
three states be called to consult on trade relations and regu¬ 
lations. And as they met at Alexandria, someone proposed 
that all the states be invited to send delegates to a later meet¬ 
ing in hope that they could all reach some agreement in 
commercial matters. His suggestion was adopted. 

But when the time arrived, only five of the States sent 
representatives to the meeting at Annapolis, November, 1785. 
Among them, however, was a young man not yet thirty, 
born and bred in the West Indies and therefore without the 
jealous, provincial view-point, which colored the opinions 
of most of the citizens of the states. Alexander Hamilton, 
representing New York, suddenly rose and proposed that 
all the states be invited by Congress to send delegates to 
Philadelphia, eighteen months later (in May, 1787), for the 
purpose of making “provisions as should appear to them 
necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Govern¬ 
ment adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” None of the 
states was at all enthusiastic over the plan, but the fact that 
anarchy was steadily increasing and that the idol of them 
all, George Washington, agreed to come as a delegate from 
Virginia, influenced them to promise to send representatives 
to Philadelphia. 

And so the great Federal convention met in 1787. The 
delegates were nervous and apprehensive, suspicious of each 
other and torn between hope and fear. They knew that by 
them the Union would either be cemented or dissolved. They 
sat—.fifty-five men—from May until the middle of September 


The Constitutional Convention 


27 


behind closed doors. They discussed their animosities, 
their grievances, their enmities, gaining confidence in each 
other as they gained knowledge of each other. And here at 
the end of five months was completed what William Ewart 
Gladstone declared to be “the most wonderful work ever 
struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of 
man.”* 

Rarely has there been assembled a more noteworthy gath¬ 
ering of political talent than that brought together here at 
Philadelphia. Of the fifty-five men, twenty-nine were Uni¬ 
versity men, representing Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Colum¬ 
bia and William and Mary in the new world and Oxford, 
Glasgow and Edinburgh in the old. The two most famous 
men, Franklin and Washington, were not University men. 
Some of the outstanding figures of the Revolution were 
missing. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were represent¬ 
ing the United States in England and France respectively. 
Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, ardent believers in 
state’s rights, as opposed to centralized government, and 
Samuel Adams, had declined to attend. Washington, the 
idol of the people, and Franklin, then eighty-one years of 
age, watched with keenest anxiety the progress of events. 
They had been identified with every step of progress that 
the colonies had made in the last twenty years and they well 
knew that the action of this convention meant either the final 
crown of hopes or the fulfillment of all fears. Washington 
struck the key note of the Convention when, rising from his 
president’s chair, he declared in a voice, husky with sup¬ 
pressed emotion, 14 Tt is too probable that no plan we pro- 

* Carson—“One Hundredth Anniversary of the Constitution of the 
United States,” reply of Gladstone to the invitation to attend the cele¬ 
bration. Vol. I, p. 402. 

T'iske, John—“Critical Period of American History.” Page 232 
(Edition 1916). 



28 


Then and Now 


pose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is 
to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we 
ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our 
work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the 
honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.” On that 
high plane the whole proceedings continued during the four 
broiling summer months, in which the Convention labored. 
But the end crowned all. It was an awe-inspiring scene 
when the representatives of the last of the twelve colonies 
taking part (Rhode Island sent no delegate) signed the tre¬ 
mendous work, destined to affect, for centuries to come, the 
destinies of the whole world. 

To Franklin, who for thirty-three years had been trying to 
form some federal union of the thirteen colonies, it was the 
supreme moment of his eighty-one years. As the meeting 
broke up he said, pointing to the back of the chair in which 
Washington had sat and on which was carved a gilded half 
sun, x “As I have been sitting here all these weeks, I have 
often wondered whether yonder sun was rising or setting. 
Now I know that it is a rising sun.” 

Tbid—p. 305. 



CHAPTER VI 


MAKERS OF THE CONSTITUTION 

E VERY new crisis in human affairs brings forward indi¬ 
viduals previously little known, but soon commanding 
the attention of their contemporaries and oftentimes dom¬ 
inating the stage of history for generations. 

Among the fifty-five men who met that spring day in 
Philadelphia to create a new government were two, then 
comparatively inconspicuous, but destined to play stellar 
roles in the drama of this nation—Alexander Hamilton and 
James Madison. Hamilton’s was the more magnetic per¬ 
sonality in the sessions, but Madison’s clear reasoning, 
depth of information and logical mind brought him leader¬ 
ship among the delegates. 

Madison was a Virginian, a Princeton graduate, about 
thirty-six years of age. He had been since youth a close 
student of politics and his experience as a member of the 
Virginia Legislature and in other colonial conventions had 
developed his great powers. He knew political theory 
thoroughly and practical political conditions as well. Mon¬ 
tesquieu’s famous “Spirit of Law,” as well as the Constitu¬ 
tion of Great Britain were alike familiar to him. He had 
exercised powerful influence in Virginian affairs and was 
thoroughly fitted to serve his state as a member of its dele¬ 
gation over which George Washington presided. He had 
always been an indefatigable worker and because of the 
role he had played in Virginian affairs and his deep and 
sincere anxiety that a Federal union should be agreed upon, 


30 


Then and Now 


he undertook the task of formulating a plan for a Consti¬ 
tution to be presented to the Convention. This plan, known 
as the “Virginia Plan,” became, with some modifications 
and more compromises, the nucleus of the Constitution of 
the United States. 

One of the greatest contributions to our information con¬ 
cerning the scenes in these secret sessions of the Convention, 
is Madison’s Journal, which the methodical Virginian com¬ 
piled, setting down every evening the events and debates of 
the day. His widow sold this Journal to Congress and it 
was published in Washington about 1840. 

In the two years between the adoption of the Constitution 
by the Convention and its ratification by the thirteenth state, 
Madison played a tremendous part. Nowhere can one find 
more interesting reading than the papers written by three 
men, published in the various journals of the day in New 
York and gathered together under the title of the “Federal¬ 
ist.” These papers discussed government in general and 
Jhis plan in particular, explaining it in detail, advocating 
and defending with a brilliancy, an understanding and an 
honesty never surpassed in political writing. One cannot 
help but wonder why the “Federalist” is practically un¬ 
known to students today, either in our High Schools or 
Colleges. John Jay, who with Madison and Hamilton made 
up this trio, was somewhat lukewarm in support of the pro¬ 
posed Constitution, but, as he was Secretary of the United 
States for Foreign Affairs, was persuaded to undertake the 
discussion which had to do with the Union vs. the States in 
Foreign relations and with the treaty making powers of the 
Senate. 

Alexander Hamilton was only thirty years of age when 
the Convention met. Born in the West Indies, he came to 
the States in 1772 and hence was free from the overpowering 
provincialism that was characteristic of many citizens, whose 


Makers of the Constitution 


31 


destinies had been from birth mingled with that of some 
one state. For three and a half years, this brilliant youth 
had been Washington’s confidential secretary and this op¬ 
portunity ripened his tremendous resources of personal ini¬ 
tiative, fearlessness, and the habit of steady and balanced 
thought. Self-reliant by nature, with a high standard of 
personal responsibility, integrity and honor, he leaned to¬ 
ward authority and was therefore not so popular with the 
masses as many other men far less able. When indepen¬ 
dence was finally assured, he spent weeks and months em¬ 
phasizing by pen and speech, the need of a strong, central 
government if the colonies were ever to reach recognized 
rank as a nation. He was a “man o’ pairts,” hut it was as a 
financial genius that he built for all time. Long before the 
Revolution ended his voice was heard again and again, urg¬ 
ing the establishment of a national bank. In every confer¬ 
ence of the Convention he figured. Far-sighted, courageous, 
brilliant in thought and speech, he was a stimulus in every 
discussion. In the years that followed the adoption of the 
Constitution, Hamilton’s is the outstanding figure of Wash¬ 
ington’s administration. As Secretary of the Treasury he 
solved two of the greatest of all the national problems and 
solved them in a way which has withstood the onslaught 
of time. He formed the plan, which provided the govern¬ 
ment of the United States with an adequate income to pay 
its bills and he established the credit of the United States. 
To no one more than to Alexander Hamilton should honor 
be paid for the constructive genius which started this 
country on a century of financial prosperity, unprecedented 
in the world. 

The men mentioned in this brief paper are only the high 
political lights of that memorable Convention. Each one 
of the fifty-five delegates is worthy of study. To none of 
them was anything in life more important than the estab- 


32 


Then and Now 


lishment of good government. Their personal integrity and 
their personal responsibility they built into the foundations 
of their government. And government is just, fine and great, 
only so far as its citizens will give of those characteristics 
to its service. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE COMPLETED DOCUMENT 

I N December, 1787, the finished work of the fifty-five 
patriots, our Constitution, was ready for submission. 
Delaware was the first to ratify, followed in six months by 
the eight other states necessary for its adoption. Not, how¬ 
ever, until Washington had been President for several 
months, did sulky Rhode Island come into the Union and 
make the colonies in truth, the United States of America. 

In an outline necessarily so brief as this, it would be 
absurd to attempt even the most superficial analysis of the 
skeleton alone of the Constitution. Only a few points may 
be touched. The “Federalist,” that unsurpassed series of 
articles written by Jay, Hamilton and Madison, and the pub¬ 
lished correspondence of many of those who supported rati¬ 
fication, interpret it as no later commentaries can. 

The Constitution differs from all kindred documents of 
this or other countries, in essential points. It is no mere 
emotional appeal for union on the basis of the “rights of 
men” and a common love of religious and political liberty. 
It is not a document of glittering generalities. However 
high its spirit may soar, its feet are firmly on the ground. 
It is the embodiment of common sense. It recognizes mate¬ 
rial as well as spiritual advantage. It is both an economic 
and a political document. It recognizes clearly that man’s 
necessity of earning a living, must determine, up to a certain 
point, not only many of his sympathies, but most of his 
actions. In the “Federalist,” Hamilton and Madison prove 


34 


Then and Now 


to the “hard-headed business man” that safety, strength and 
prosperity would follow the adoption of this new plan of 
union. And the marvelous century, succeeding, completely 
justified their faith. 

No government document before had ever recognized the 
rights of the individual and protection in those rights as 
does our Constitution. It assumes what the evidence of 
centuries proves—that every step of human progress, in its 
upward struggle, has been made in the beginning by per¬ 
sonal initiative. When that mainspring of human effort is 
weakened or destroyed, civilization is inevitably set back. 
The Constitution fosters personal initiative through its guar¬ 
antee to the individual of rights in property. According to 
its terms, our citizens stand equal before the law. It recog¬ 
nizes neither differences of ancestry nor of opinion. It 
knows no privileged class. It establishes no religion, but 
harbors all. It admits of no political power as inherent 
in property. 

Its most unusual feature, perhaps, lies in its provision 
that no two of the leading branches of government derive 
their authority from the same source. It establishes a most 
remarkable system of powers and counter powers, of author¬ 
ity granted and its abuse prevented. The Senate was to be 
chosen by the State Legislatures. (Is there any proof that 
we have benefited by the change to popular election of sena¬ 
tors? The calibre of most of the present incumbents, 
would suggest an emphatic negative.) The members of the 
House of Representatives are elected by the vote of the en¬ 
franchised masses. The President, while designated by the 
voters at large, is chosen by electors, selected according to a 
plan determined upon by the Legislatures of the individual 
states. It provides for two houses in a legislative body, a 
tremendous advantage in a Federal government. If one, 
then gets over-heated or dangerously impetuous, the fact that 


The Completed Document 


35 


a proposed measure must go through the other house gives 
time to cool off or reconsider. The Federal judges are 
appointed by the President, but must be confirmed by the 
Senate. Independent of the people in their appointment and 
serving for life, they are not subject to the inhibitions—and 
apparent miscarriage of justice, only too often evident 
among state judges, when election time is approaching. (Is 
there not every evidence that under our elective system for 
the state judiciary, cases are delayed and prolonged, and 
justice miscarries because the judiciary is dependent upon 
“popularity” with attorneys and other individuals—on 
“popularity” that weakest of all human reeds, for election 
to or continuance in office? Compare the independence of 
judicial action in the Federal and State Courts. In six of 
the original thirteen states the state judiciary is appointed, 
it is not elected. A careful comparison of the court action 
in those six states with that in the states of the Union, where 
the Judiciary is elected will prove not only very interesting, 
but will furnish food for serious thought. Might not a 
closer modeling of our state constitutions upon our national 
document save us many of the worst of our state prob¬ 
lems?) The difference in tenure of office of the President, 
the Senators, the Representatives and the Judiciary is also a 
great safeguard. The balancing and counter-checking of 
power at its source has proved an immensely wise provision. 

We shall see how the Congress of the new Constitution 
was able to meet the problems, which the Congress of the 
Articles of Confederation could not touch. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE COMPLETED DOCUMENT 
(Continued) 

KTO authority has weight unless it can enforce its decrees. 

^ That was the trouble with the Congress of the Confed¬ 
eration. It could make laws, but had no way of ensuring obe¬ 
dience to them; it could propose action, but had no money 
to do anything and no way of forcing the states to honor its 
requisitions. Its President had no power, he was simply a 
presiding officer. But every provision of the new Constitu¬ 
tion was drawn either to remedy or to prevent an evil, to 
protect or develop to their fullest, every national resource 
in men and property. And it fulfilled and will still fulfill, 
if permitted, the purposes for which it was drafted. 

The Constitution recognizes but one executive, the Presi¬ 
dent. To him it grants power to carry out the laws made by 
Congress. No one man could accomplish even a tiny part of 
the work of executing the immense number of laws, which 
Congress passes very session, viz.—printing and selling 
bonds, commanding the armies authorized by Congress, 
administering the postal service, collecting taxes, coining 
money, which Congress authorizes, building and manning a 
navy, governing territories and possessions outside the states, 
regulating foreign relations, etc., etc., all these are but a 
fraction of the executive work. The President’s cabinet is 
composed of his lieutenants, to whom he delegates certain 
authority and who are answerable to him. But Congress 


The Completed Document 


37 


recognizes only the President, and his tremendous power is 
checked by the right of Congress to impeach him. 

The greatest change in this new document as contrasted 
with the Articles of Confederation, lay in the authority 
granted to Congress. To it belongs the power to pass laws, 
regulating our foreign relations and alliances (the last nine 
years have seen much responsibility here, Congress exercis¬ 
ing this fundamental right when it rejected the Peace Treaty 
and the League of Nations as endorsed by Mr. Wilson), to 
control public lands (our national parks, preserves, etc.), to 
care for and maintain all that pertains to shipping and 
defense (docks, harbors, fortifications, equipment of army 
and navy, etc., etc.), to regulate commerce with foreign 
nations and between the states, and the right to levy taxes to 
finance all this work. This is enormous legislative power, 
made even greater by the so-called “elastic clause” of the 
Constitution, but it is balanced by two factors, 1st, the 
power of the President to veto any law passed by Congress, 
thus preventing its adoption unless it is passed a second 
time by a two-thirds majority of both houses, and 2nd, by 
the power of the Supreme Court, which has the right to 
examine all laws passed by Congress and for that matter 
by the states and if it finds them violating the Constitution of 
the United States, to declare them null and void, thus safe¬ 
guarding the rights of the national and state governments 
and of the individual. 

To this Supreme Court, the official interpreter and guar¬ 
dian of the Constitution, belongs also the right to try cases 
affecting a foreign minister or cases between a state and the 
nation. 

Mention was made above of the so-called elastic clause 
of the Constitution, the “blessed” clause one enthusiast calls 
it—the clause which was for many years the subject of 
acrimonious disagreement. It has been the avenue through 


38 


Then and Now 


which the Constitution has met and must meet the changed 
conditions of our modern life. This clause reads—“And 
to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers.” (Art. 1, 
Section 8, Clause 18.) Was this clause to be interpreted 
“strictly” or “loosely,” “narrowly” or “broadly”? The 
battle raged over that question for many years. Did this 
clause mean that the President and Congress had only such 
powers as were explicitly granted to them in Articles 1 and 
11, or did they have the powers implied? The Supreme 
Court has held in favor of the “loose” construction, that is, 
the President and Congress have powers “implied” as 
well as “implicitly” stated. It is this wise clause which 
makes the Constitution adaptable to changed or unforeseen 
conditions and renders it serviceable for all time. It cannot 
be justly criticised, much less discarded, on the ground that 
it is impossible to adapt it to meet the needs of modern life 
in government. This clause makes such adaptation entirely 
possible. 

A method by which the document may be amended is 
carefully planned and definitely specified. When two- 
thirds of both houses of Congress believe an amendment 
necessary or when two-thirds of the legislatures of all the 
States make application for a Convention to be called, for 
the purpose of proposing certain amendments, those amend¬ 
ments are valid after they have been ratified by the legisla¬ 
tures of three-fourths of the states and thus become a part 
of the Constitution of the United States. Up to date (1923), 
nineteen amendments have been proposed, passed and rati¬ 
fied as parts of the Constitution. 

The States are by no means bereft of authority in spite 
of these tremendous powers granted to the Nation. To them 
belong the establishment of systems of public education, of 
city, county and town governments, the passage of laws to 


The Completed Document 


39 


protect life and property, to regulate marriage and inheri¬ 
tance, to charter and regulate corporations, banks, insurance 
and trust companies and innumerable other rights within 
moral, social and political fields. 

We live under two distinct governments, the Federal and 
the State. In the various states numerous devices of govern¬ 
ment have been tried out in the last few years (devices, 
many of which are not new but which were tried centuries 
ago and proved failures). These go far afield from our 
national Constitution in even the principles of government. 
It would be well to compare these experimenting states with 
some still adhering closely to the national Constitution as a 
pattern. Are they less sincere, less effective, less economical 
in providing equality of justice and of opportunity for all? 
Have they simply complicated government, reducing its 
effectiveness, increasing its expenses, lowering its standards, 
and destroying respect for law? Is the tendency of govern¬ 
ment today in the states toward a higher or a lower level? 
These are questions which must be answered before much 
time has passed. 


CHAPTER IX 


OUR FIRST HUNDRED YEARS AS A NATION 
1790-1890 

^ I A HE nineteenth century, well called the “century of 
A hope,” stands unique in human history. Those hundred 
years saw advances in man’s comfort, his welfare and his 
potential resources, such as no previous thousand years had 
even remotely foreshadowed. 

Within a decade after the adoption of our Constitution a 
spirit of nationalism began to manifest itself and order 
began to emerge from chaos. This progress continued with¬ 
out interruption through even the supremely critical test of 
Civil War. 

We began our career as a nation, with resources of raw 
material, such as no nation in the world had ever possessed. 
These had been the holdings of the Indian for centuries, 
but were valueless to him since physical strength alone can 
never transmute potential wealth into real wealth. Only 
brain, talent and genius can do that. We can afford to keep 
that fact in mind. 

In this hundred years, our population grew from about 
three million to about one hundred and ten million. Andrew 
Johnson, who left the White House in 1869, declared that it 
would take six hundred years to populate our west. He 
could not visualize the appeal of this nation to men seeking 
opportunity. The government gave its lands to home¬ 
steaders freely, making it possible for millions, who had 
known little but want and misery, to find in this new land, 


Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 


41 


not only liberty, but material prosperity for themselves, 
their children and their children’s children. As to a 
“promised land,” the early settlers poured in at our ports, 
settlers largely from Scandinavia, the British Isles and Ger¬ 
many (especially the refugees from the attempted revolution 
of 1848—that abortive effort to throw off political oppres¬ 
sion ). These new settlers were men and women like-minded 
to American citizens in social, political and religious ideals. 
They loved and cherished our government institutions, sup¬ 
ported its laws and served its needs as it served theirs. 
They were a welcome addition, easily assimilated and added 
to the general well-being of their adopted land. To them 
we owe much of the upbuilding of the country districts. 
The majority of them were country lovers, agriculturists, 
lovers of the land. The story of immigration at the present 
time is a very different one. The large majority of the im¬ 
migrants today come from southeastern and eastern Europe 
and are city dwellers by preference, adding their numbers 
to the tenement house population and helping to create slum 
districts, which are a physical and spiritual menace to them¬ 
selves and to the remainder of the population. In the prob¬ 
lem of immigration as elsewhere “eternal vigilance is the 
price of liberty.” Is it not time to consider this problem 
from some other angle than that of providing an asylum for 
the poor and oppressed? Franklin P. Adams, “Columnist,” 
formerly with the New York Tribune, speaking of the 
United States as the traditional “asylum of the poor and 
oppressed,” has said what a good many Americans, who look 
to the future of our nation, are thinking: “Some of us, who 
are not particularly poor nor oppressed, but who have to 
live in the asylum, suggest that the more violent inmates be 
confined in separate wards.” 

What did this century do for education? In 1801 there 
were 24 colleges for men, none for women (two small en- 


42 


Then and Now 


dowed schools, under religious sects were the only oppor¬ 
tunities for woman’s higher education, no high schools being 
open to women and only a very few of the better grammar 
schools, under irksome restrictions). Today, there are over 
500 colleges, 80 per cent of them open to women. During 
that century popular education in our “public schools,” 
albeit limited in scope to the simpler and foundation ele¬ 
ments of education, seems to have helped to produce in 
students, power for doing and a self-reliance quite foreign 
to our present public school products. Here, as elsewhere, 
appreciation and utilization of resources seem to be in 
inverse proportion to the ease by which they may be secured. 

As the larger and most fertile lands were disposed of by 
the government to homesteading settlers, more and more of 
the semi-desert land has been brought under cultivation, 
through irrigation and that process has just begun. We 
have not yet in any portion of our vast country, prac¬ 
tised intensive and scientific agriculture, such as has been 
necessary for centuries in European lands. Our limitations 
in agriculture are not yet even apparent on the horizon. 

The progress made during these ten decades in promoting 
the health and physical well-being of men, is alone enough 
to justify the century. It is impossible in a brief sketch to 
touch any other than the highest lights of human progress 
in this direction. Anesthesia, vaccination, antitoxin, the 
knowledge of bacteria, of antiseptics mark this period. 
Small pox, yellow fever, diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis 
have all come under man’s control. The progress in surgery, 
made possible by the discovery of anesthetics, is like a story 
from the Arabian Nights. Every municipality, every state 
and the nation itself, guards and promotes the health of its 
citizens. It is well to remember, too, that many of the vast 
fortunes made by individuals have been turned to the use of 
fellow men for the promotion of their knowledge, their edu- 


Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 


43 


cation and their health. No decrier of our government 
principles can say with any honesty that those principles 
have destroyed the sense of responsibility for the welfare of 
our fellow citizens. Witness the Rockefeller, the Russell 
Sage, the Carnegie Foundations. 

But the most astounding advance has been in the field of 
invention and the application of those scientific discoveries 
to modern industry. When the century began there was 
neither telegraph nor telephone, neither steamboat nor 
automobile. The cable and the locomotive were unknown, 
the multiple printing press, farm machinery, the vast steel 
structures, the great suspension and cantilever bridges were 
undreamed, while electricity with its manifold uses was yet 
but the unchained power of the air. Even matches, postage 
stamps, envelopes, the cotton “gin,” the bicycle and the use 
of gas, things so old, we do not think of them as “modern,” 
were yet in the realm of the undiscovered. 

And out of these inventions, applied to the available re¬ 
sources in raw material, developed wealth—wealth not con¬ 
fined to a few, as socialist and communist statements so 
often assert, but wealth wide-spread and with every decade, 
including a larger and a larger circle of citizens. Under 
the capitalist system of industry, the vast wealth produced 
has not been concentrated in the hands of a few, nor have 
the masses become progressively poorer. The number of 
the poor in proportion to the total number of the entire 
population has steadily decreased. Today, according to 
statistics, over 75 per cent of the wage earners in the United 
States either own their own homes or have equity in them 
and are paying for them. 1 

There are elements in the capitalist system of which we all 
disapprove. No human scheme has ever been pronounced 

1 See the article on “The Logic of Capitalism,” by J. Laurence 
Laughlin, in the January, 1924, number of “The Yale Review.” 



44 


Then and Now 


perfect. But there is one fundamental, elemental fact which 
seems to be entirely irrefutable—without the capitalist sys¬ 
tem of industry, the populations of the countries could not 
secure enough food to keep themselves alive. Winston 
Churchill made a very interesting address on this very 
theme in the House of Commons in May of this year, 
(1923). He says as quoted: 

“It’s easy to denounce or deride the capitalist system and 
to point to its many inequalities and imperfections. But 
the capitalist system, armed with science, has enabled us to 
organize and develop our industries and our trade in such 
a manner that at least 20,000,000 people have been brought 
into existence in this island (England) more than the island 
itself could feed and keep alive, even on the lowest level. 

“Without our credit, dependent upon our massed capital 
and strict financial methods, without the world-wide trading 
conceptions dependent upon sanctity of contract, without 
our free and unhampered individual enterprise, it would 
not be possible to keep alive and buy the food for nearly 
one-half the British nation.” 

His argument finds self-evident proof in conditions in 
Russia. One of the greatest food producing countries in 
the world, it has not been able to feed itself under the 
Soviet system, not because the soil was different, not be¬ 
cause men could not work, but because the centers of massed 
capital were destroyed, transportation facilities ruined and 
all organization broken down. Only through organization 
made possible by capital, provided through unrestrained 
individual enterprises, has it been possible in the past to pro¬ 
vide 150,000,000 souls with their necessities. Thousands 
upon thousands have starved to death in Russia and mil¬ 
lions have been kept alive only because some “capitalistic” 
nation gave of her surplus. 

Do you think that our United States would have a differ- 


Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 45 

ent history from Russia under a socialist or communist gov¬ 
ernment? What makes it possible for food products to 
move from the distant places of production to the centers 
of population except massed capital? Where is there a 
source of public capital except in taxation of private prop¬ 
erty? How, under a soviet regime, can public capital be 
amassed for the accomplishment of great enterprises, such 
as transportation, etc., when private property has been 
abolished? Let us face the facts. 

It is interesting to read, in this connection, some data 
quoted by an eminent historian, concerning the changes in 
the conditions of the negro, whose poverty after the Civil 
War reached a state of utter deprivation, seldom seen, even 
in the great slums of cities. “Illiteracy among the negroes 
decreased from 80 per cent in 1880 to 44 per cent in 1900. 
The wealth of the negroes is estimated at over $300,000,000. 
They owned (in 1905) or rented 746,717 farms, containing 
altogether some 38,000,000 acres or double the area of 
Scotland. They have over thirty banks, besides building 
loan companies, insurance companies and mutual aid socie¬ 
ties. There are nearly 2,000 negro physicians and surgeons 
in the United States and 1,600,000 negroes are enrolled in 
the public schools or about half those of school age.” 
Remember that this data is of 1905 and those conditions 
have greatly improved since that time. 

Nor was the century one of material progress alone. Con¬ 
gress, especially in the early part and middle of the century, 
contained many men, whom we rank as statesmen—men of 
brains, of education, of culture, of capacity, of responsi¬ 
bility. Their records as law-makers were records of per¬ 
sonal integrity, of idealism and of service, coupled with a 
thorough knowledge of the science of government. 

The most serious problem, which the production of wealth 
has brought, is that of privilege, the corruption of govern- 


46 


Then and Now 


ment by the power of money. Wealth has been used to 
secure the election of individuals, known to be favorable to 
certain interests and these interests have been guarded from 
unfavorable legislation by the action of these “paid” govern¬ 
ment officials. It is that corruption in government which has 
been largely responsible for the wave of demagogism and 
the determination of the people to control law-making them¬ 
selves by direct vote. 

It is that corruption in government and the manipulation 
of wealth (the story of the Wall Street wrecking of rail¬ 
roads is a glaring instance) which prepared the land for 
the sowing of seeds of experimentation in government and 
even of anarchy. But by the end of the century an American 
public conscience was awakened. Today, sincere, if mis¬ 
guided extremists in their eager desire to remedy these 
abuses and “purify” politics have lead us into some by-paths 
of government that bid fair to be blind alleys if nothing 
worse. Extremists advocate government ownership of 
public utilities and other radical measures. They seek to 
improve government, not by greater care and wisdom in the 
selection of thoroughly qualified representatives and admin¬ 
istrators, but by placing the responsibility of law-making 
directly in the hands of the masses through the initiative, the 
referendum and even in some few cases through the recall. 
(The initiative was first adopted in the United States by 
South Dakota in 1898, but since that time twenty other 
states have adopted both initiative and referendum and two 
others have placed the referendum alone upon their statute 
books.) 

Is it insignificant that South Dakota, the first state to 
adopt the initiative, has on November 2nd, 1920, modified 
the law to make it more difficult to place initiative petitions 
on the ballot? An indirect result, but one of the worst 
consequences of Direct Legislation, is the steadily deterio- 


Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 47 

rating personnel of those who constitute the law-making 
bodies of our states. The superior type of man, the man of 
ability, thoroughly familiar with the field of government, 
however deep his patriotism, is not going to give of himself 
and his finest services, when, though he is duly and legally 
elected to represent the people, the uninformed masses, 
emotionally actuated and superficial in judgment, may de¬ 
stroy with ignorant vote the best fruits of months of un¬ 
selfish labor. 

Other citizens still believe that the fundamental concept 
of the republic, legislation by duly qualified and elected 
representatives of the people, not by direct vote, is the only 
wise method for the law-making of any group larger than 
a town meeting. They believe that these recognized and 
most serious abuses in corruption of government by money 
power, can be corrected by intelligent regulation and con¬ 
trol, through government agencies, without departure from 
the original plan of government, which has proved itself 
successful as no government has ever known success. Which 
is the wiser method? Other countries paid our Constitution 
the supreme compliment, in adopting many elements of our 
plan. Scandinavia, France, England, Italy, Servia, Poland, 
most of the Central and South American states, Germany 
(today) and even China, have adopted some of the ideas of 
government as planned to insure the rights of the people and 
as first expressed in our Constitution. 

These queries coming from a citizen of Massachusetts, 
are pertinent: 

“To those of our citizens who urge the need of improve¬ 
ment in the existing machinery of our government through 
fundamental changes in its provisions”: 

“Where is there another government on the face of the 
earth today, which has brought to its people as great an 


48 


Then and Now 


average measure of prosperity, comfort and happiness as 
has ours? 

“Where will you find another country, whose citizens are 
assured a greater degree of individual freedom, opportunity 
or protection than in ours? 

“In what other country has it been possible for so many 
individuals of obscure and humble origin to rise to positions 
of wealth and influence in their several communities? 

“All of these superior advantages have been developed 
under a form of government to which has been applied the 
acid test of one hundred and forty years of national expe¬ 
rience. A most serious burden rests upon those who would 
now depart from tried and successful methods, to prove that 
their proposed experimental substitutes will promise as 
much.” 

To that might well be added—in what country are the 
physically and mentally unfit, cared for so cheerfully and 
so continuously (some might add so unwisely) as here in 
these United States? 

Where in the world can there be found a greater spirit of 
generosity, of free sharing of comfort and wealth with those 
who need, than here? 

And among those of great wealth, where will you find a 
greater sense of responsibility for returning large portions 
of that wealth for the common good, than is found here? 

Government under our Constitution has not destroyed 
man’s sense of responsibility for his brother’s welfare. 

It was a marvellous century, those hundred years which 
followed the adoption of the Constitution, years of unprec¬ 
edented development, of unequalled prosperity; years 
when the worst evils in government seemed to carry within 
them the germs of their own destruction. What have the 
production of vast wealth, the multiplicity of great inven¬ 
tions, the diffusion of information done for us? They have 


Our First Hundred Years as a Nation 49 

speeded life up for us, they have enabled us to get almost 
immediate information concerning the doings of the “other 
fellow,” they have made it possible for us, in “voluntary 
cooperation” to work together as men never worked since 
time began. But have they created the necessity for change 
in the basic principles of our republican government? When 
that question is asked fearlessly and answered seriously 
with intellectual honesty, there can be but one reply. There 
are no changes in modern life which cannot be met govern- 
mentally by changes in methods of administration. The 
representative principles on which our great Republic was 
founded are as sound today as they were in the time of 
Washington. We have had just cause for pride in our be¬ 
loved land. “Our lines have fallen unto us in pleasant 
places—yea, we have a goodly heritage.” Are we keeping 
faith? 


CHAPTER X 


DANGER SIGNS 

"VTO careful student of American history can fail to recog- 

^ nize that a great spiritual change has come over us here 
in the ast thirty years. It is well marked, many of its fea¬ 
tures are spectacular. Nor can we, justly, lay it on the Great 
War, that convenient scapegoat where we now heap respon¬ 
sibility for all social and political conditions of which we 
do not approve. This change appeared long before 1914 
and the war only developed it more rapidly. 

We have become increasingly restive with a growing con¬ 
tempt for law and a dislike of being governed. Yet 
strangely enough there never was a time when men relied 
so much and so continuously upon the state for aid, rather 
than upon their individual efforts. “Let George do it,” and 
George is the state. We have such a multiplicity of hoards, 
commissions, bureaus, etc., that it sometimes looks as if the 
state were becoming, not the servant, but the master of the 
people. Further and further has the socialist desire for 
more government in everything, gained ground. Are we to 
forget that this nation developed its greatness on the basis 
of individual self-reliance and voluntary cooperation with 
personal and property rights guaranteed by government? 

What are the functions of government as conceived by 
these makers of our nation? Read the preamble of our 
Constitution—“to form a more perfect union, to establish 
justice, to insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com¬ 
mon defence, promote the general welfare and secure the 


Danger Signs 


51 


blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Can 
you find in that preamble or in the entire Constitution, the 
faintest suggestion of provision for class advantage? Is 
there anywhere the slightest evidence that the welfare of any 
group whatsoever, should be furthered at the expense of the 
rest of the people? In the eyes of those who seek a new 
Constitution for our land, that omission seems to be the 
great weakness of our present Constitution. If one reads 
socialist and communist propaganda, reads it closely and 
interprets it thoughtfully, we should apparently adopt a 
Constitution, whose main purpose should be to promote 
class feeling, class prosperity and class power, and the 
standard of that class (they seem to think) should be the 
standard of the masses. Personal initiative and ambition 
in the average man, talent and genius in the superior man 
should go for nothing since no superior brain capacity and 
no greater personal effort should bring any individual re¬ 
ward. Never in the entire history of the race, not since the 
first “superior” cave man conceived the idea of chipping 
his round flint, giving it a cutting edge and making it a 
better weapon to secure his food and beat off his enemies, 
has a single step been made in the progress of mankind, 
which was not first due to the personal initiative, the supe¬ 
rior mental capacity or the greater effort of some individual. 
He awakened the mass and helped it through its capacity to 
imitate to take a faltering step forward. The maximum of 
individual freedom under the law is the key-stone of our 
Constitution. Every limitation of this individual freedom 
under the law or of voluntary cooperation is a prostitution 
of the functions of government and a violation of the per¬ 
sonal rights of the individual, a violation which will lead 
inevitably to the destruction of every hope of securing “the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” 

In this connection the summarization of the Fascisti idea 


52 


Then and Now 


of government is of especial interest. The purposes of the 
Fascistis, that citizen organization, which has undertaken to 
bring order out of chaos in Italy and to bend all energies 
toward the prosperity and welfare of their country, are 
quoted by the Rome correspondent of the London “Saturday 
Review” as follows: 

“To reestablish a strong central power and at the same 
time to destroy professional politics,” “to inaugurate a col¬ 
laboration of all classes instead of the fight of class against 
class as practised by socialism,” “to submit the interests of 
individualist and of classes to the general good; that is to 
say, to drive into the brain of the masses the idea of a 
hierarchy in which quality counts above quantity,” “to re¬ 
duce the Ministries from about fifteen to five and to destroy 
bureaucracy and state monopolies.” 

Whatever one thinks of Mussolini and the Graeco-Italian 
controversy—this Fascisti program is noteworthy. Compare 
it with the preamble of the Constitution of the Industrial 
Workers of the World (I. W. W.’s) given below: 

“The working class and the employing class have nothing 
in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and 
want are found among millions of working people and the 
few, who make up the employing class, have all the good 
things of life. 

“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until 
the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession 
of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish 
the wage system. 

“These conditions can be changed and the interest of the 
working class upheld only by an organization formed in 
such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in 
all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or 
lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an 
injury to one an injury to all. 


Danger Signs 


53 


“Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for 
a fair day’s work,’ we must inscribe on our banner the revo¬ 
lutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wage system.’ 

“It is the historic mission of the working class to do away 
with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, 
not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but 
also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been 
overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the 
structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” 

Reread the preamble of our own Constitution. 

We might well face and recognize existing conditions 
which should be a matter of serious concern for the future 
of this great republican, this representative government. We 
have been very proud of our public school system and 
blandly, smugly complacent with its methods. For genera¬ 
tions it apparently fulfilled the function of providing every 
citizen with a firm, if simple, foundation of education. The 
findings in the draft, during the world war, shocked us some¬ 
what and those statistics have been followed recently by 
some figures supplied by a former specialist in Educational 
Statistics in the United States Bureau of Education. These 
are still more disturbing. “There are,” he says, “enough 
persons in the United States unable to read and write to take 
the place of the populations of Washington, Oregon, Cali¬ 
fornia, Nevada and Arizona. There are five times as many 
illiterates as there are college graduates. There is only one 
college graduate to every 116 persons and only one to 
every 61 adults.” In our United States today there are 20 
states which have both the initiative and the referendum and 
two others which have the referendum alone (June, 1923). 
These states may adopt laws which affect not only their 
state, but the nation at large, laws adopted not by vote of 
representatives of the people chosen for their qualifications 
in knowledge and experience, but by vote of the masses, and 


54 


Then and Now 


among the masses, according to statistics, there is an alarm¬ 
ingly large percentage of illiteracy, not including the much 
larger number who have a smattering of education, but no 
qualifications whatever to judge wisely of measures and 
laws. How will this work out? 

Many schools emphasize “self-expression” at the price of 
neglect of resources which must be cultivated before the 
students can produce anything worth expressing. At a recent 
conference held for the discussion of the problems of higher 
education, representatives of some of the greatest of our 
universities debated whether it might not be best to have no 
required courses for students, but to permit them to choose 
nothing but electives, to plan their entire college course with 
no interference whatsoever from college authorities. The 
caustic comment of a recent writer, that “of all peoples 
under the sun, those of the United States had the most wise- 
spread and most superficial education,” is too painfully true 
to be agreeable. 

Modern life has been terrifically speeded up by the great 
mechanical inventions—information concerning the “other 
fellow” and his doings is communicated all over the earth 
with startling rapidity. It is not surprising that with the 
mass of material constantly accumulating, the problem of 
“selection” in education is a staggering problem. But that 
problem must be met and met wisely. There is no way to 
avoid the responsibility, much less is there a way to avoid 
the consequences of failure. 

A young college student was recently complaining of the 
tyranny of our government, how it favored the rich at the 
expense of the poor, how corrupt were its officials, etc., etc. 
He inveighed against the form of our government and ex¬ 
pressed conviction that only a socialistic state could remedy 
affairs. When asked how the Constitution permitted these 
iniquities, how, therefore, he could prove his assertions of 


Danger Signs 


55 


tyranny, he acknowledged that he had never read the docu¬ 
ment in question, much less had he studied it seriously.* 
He is not to be blamed. The demagogue is ubiquitous, urg¬ 
ing panaceas for social and political ills. The youth, his 
heart swelling with just indignation at the poverty and 
misery he sees about him, believes what he hears, that these 
conditions are due to government tyranny and injustice, that 
under another form of government such things will cease to 
be. He has no sound, thorough acquaintance with the prin¬ 
ciples of our government, no first hand knowledge of how 
necessary change can be brought about without destruction 
of its principles. He has never been provided with facts by 
which to controvert the assertions of the demagogues. Com¬ 
parative government is unknown to him. Why the govern¬ 
ments of Greece or Rome failed when put to the test of time, 
he has rarely heard. The numerous political devices for 
change, a change which sometimes tends to the destruction 
of the principles of republican (representative) government, 
which he hears advocated, he fondly believes to be new, to 
be a potent magic which will cure inequalities of wealth and 
solve the problems of misery. He does not know that prac¬ 
tically all of them have been tried and have failed—that 
the makers of our Constitution drew upon all experiments 
in government and the experiences of all peoples before they 
presented to the world the completed document by which the 
maximum of individual freedom under law, was guaranteed. 
In handing on our heritage to the new generation, our heri¬ 
tage of which we are only trustees, has the education we have 
offered emphasized material goals at the expense of finer 
things? In our extreme desire that the youth of our day 
should “have a good time,” should be entirely freed from 

♦In the last few months, eleven states have passed laws, requiring 
the teaching of the Constitution in High Schools and Universities and 
in eight other states similar legislation is pending. (June, 1923.) 



56 


Then and Now 


the inhibitions of our generation, many of which we now 
believe to have been unnecessary, have we awakened the 
sense of personal responsibility, essential in those who must 
carry on the ideals of our republic? “Where there is no 
vision, the people perish.” 

The change in the character of immigration into the states 
in the last few decades, is another factor which challenges 
serious attention. Even now, we do not seem to be greatly 
concerned over the quality of the immigrant, but merely 
over his quantity. Foreign lands are often greatly relieved 
at the departure of some of their citizens for America. They 
come, many of them, with respect neither for law nor for 
government, advocating overturning of our principles and 
destruction of our government as the means by which wealth 
should be equalized and misery abolished. And within our 
own borders they find adherents.* Within some of our 
states a majority of the public school teachers are either 
foreign born or of foreign parentage. What consistent effort 
was made in the training of those teachers to acquaint them 
with the fundamental principles of American government? 
What acquaintance have they with comparative government? 
Those are questions which we have every right and every 
reason to ask. 

In the opening of this chapter we spoke of a growing dis¬ 
like of being governed. Our doctrine of “equality” is fast 
becoming reduced to an absurdity. In his famous “Spirit 
of Laws,” a book as entertaining as any novel and the great¬ 
est study of the theory of government ever made, Montes¬ 
quieu says (Book 8, Chap. 2): “The principle of democracy 
is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, 

*No more thought provoking volume has appeared in recent years, 
than Lothrop Stoddard’s “The Revolt Against Civilization.” No 
reader, however much he may disagree with Mr. Stoddard’s views, 
can fail to realize the dangers which confront us. 



Danger Signs 


57 


but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, 
and when each citizen would fain be on a level with all 
those whom he has chosen to command him. Then the 
people incapable of bearing the very power they have dele¬ 
gated want to manage everything for themselves, to debate 
for the senate, to execute for the magistrate and to decide for 
the judges.” 

We demand specialists in medicine and surgery, in law 
and finance, in architecture and engineering, but we assume 
that every individual understands the science of government. 
We are a patriotic people, but does our patriotism not some¬ 
times consist either in flag waving or in the expressed con¬ 
viction of personal ability to run the government. Few of 
us have either leisure or opportunity in truth, to study 
closely and investigate thoroughly, the conditions which 
affect our whole social and political structure. Are we wise 
in undertaking to prescribe for their ills under these con¬ 
ditions? We have tried Direct Primaries and Direct Leg¬ 
islation. Are you pleased with the results? And quackeries 
are offered us on every hand with the voice of the demagogue 
“making the worse appear the better reason.” “Try Single 
Tax, try Proportional Representation, try this, try that.” 
The claims for these panaceas read like patent medicine ad¬ 
vertisements. This attempt to govern directly by popular 
or mass vote, is undoubtedly due, however, to the fact that 
in the past many government servants, relied upon for just 
and honest administration, failed us and betrayed their trust. 
When wealth increased with the power that comes from 
money, they permitted themselves to be bought and justice 
to be corrupted. It is because they failed us that many 
present problems have come about. Yet we have not sup¬ 
ported many a high-minded official, who sought to carry 
out, at immense personal cost, the principles of just govern¬ 
ment. We have crucified him without mercy. Can we be 


58 


Then and Now 


surprised then if the ablest, the best equipped and most 
enlightened citizens decline to take an official part in pol¬ 
itics ? 

But why should we focus attention on men to the ex¬ 
clusion of principles? We elect individuals, we do not 
demand a declaration of principles and elect those who 
hold certain convictions. This is the result of the District 
Primary. Political conventions as they were orginally 
planned obligated political parties to assume responsibility 
(if their representatives were elected) for the definite and 
distinct political policies they had voiced. Today we elect 
a man to a government post of vital importance and are 
usually utterly ignorant of his convictions on any phase of 
the responsibilities entailed in his position. In the state 
conventions held here in California (1922) neither party 
declared itself on a single one of the important measures 
which were voted upon in the elections of the following 
November (1922). They voiced mere platitudes and the 
differences between their platitudes were like those between 
Tweedledum and Tweedledee. It was again Andy Gump 
with his “I am one hundred per cent for the people.” That 
same election gave food for thought (to those who care to 
think) on the subject of Direct Legislation. There were 
thirty measures brought before the people (exclusive of a 
large number of other matters to be voted upon) and these 
measures covered among others the following subjects: 
Financial loans to soldiers and soldiers’ exemption from 
taxation, Housing, Annexation or Consolidation of Munici¬ 
palities, Regulation of Title Insurance Companies, Taxation 
of Public Utilities, The State Budget, Salaries of Judges 
and Justices, Taxation of Foreign Securities, Licensing of 
Chiropractors, Regulation of Osteopaths, Development of 
Water and Power Facilities, Vivisection, Single Tax, Rights 
of Absent Voters, Formation of School Districts, Franchise 


Danger Signs 


59 


Rights for Street Railways and Motors, Unlawful Practice 
of Law, Joint Construction of Public Works by Municipali¬ 
ties, etc., etc. And these and many other proposed measures 
were voted upon by the masses, who could not possibly have 
facilities for accurate information, much less for sound 
judgment. One is safe in saying that a large proportion of 
those “expressing themselves” by vote on those measures, 
had never heard of many of them, probably of most of 
them, before picking up the ballot. If Direct Legislation 
were not fraught with such tragic possibilities, the whole 
thing would be amusing. 

Direct Legislation has been, and apparently will be, suc¬ 
cessful only in inverse proportion to the size of the territory 
and the population involved. The history of the rise and 
fall of the Greek City Democracies is well worth studying. 
Legislation in a town meeting and legislation for vast states 
and vaster nations, are problems which vary in kind as well 
as in degree. 

At this date, no irreparable injury has as yet been done 
to the Federal Constitution, but when we see what can and 
has been done to State Constitutions, we can have no convic¬ 
tion that this charter of liberties which still stands after 
“years littered with the wrecks of governments and nations 
and dynasties and constitutions”* will be permitted undis¬ 
turbed, to continue to protect and “to promote the general 
welfare” of the people whom it has served so well. 

Necessary change can always'be effected by the repeal of 
old or the passage of new laws. The Constitution may be 
amended at any time to meet changed living conditions. But 
the principles on which it was draughted must stand un¬ 
impaired if equality of opportunity for all men is not to 
perish from the earth. There is no governmental need 

*C. C. Nott—“The Immutability of the Constitution” in the volume, 
“The Nineteenth Century.” 



60 


Then and Now 


which cannot be met under our Constitution, while men 
recognize their own rights and respect those of other men. 
And no new Constitution, no different conception of govern¬ 
ment, can bring about a change in the spiritual nature of 
mankind. Our great document does not seek to provide a 
system by which the many may live at the expense of the 
few. It does seek to protect the individual and to guar¬ 
antee to him the rewards of his labor. The responsibility 
for his individual life still rests on himself. And only thus 
has progress ever been made in the aeons of time since first 
the “ape man raised his eyes to the stars.” 

One of the most serious dangers which our government 
confronts, is the apathy of the voters best equipped to exer¬ 
cise the franchise. Many of our well qualified citizens fail 
even to go to the polls. In the presidential election of 1920 
barely 50 per cent of the legal voters cast their votes. Our 
South American neighbor, Argentina, fines everyone of her 
citizens who fails to vote. Do we have to put another un¬ 
enforced statute upon our books before we even begin to 
realize where our careless indifference is leading, what re¬ 
sults our negligence is helping to bring about? The selfish 
interests and those who advocate destruction of existing 
principles of representative government, never neglect their 
privilege of voting. This government can never be domi¬ 
nated by a “few” under our Constitution. 

But it must continue to be a government by representa¬ 
tion not by direct vote, if we are to survive as a nation and 
our civilization is to maintain itself and to develop. The 
ablest and best equipped of our citizens must be persuaded 
to take official share in the responsibilities of government, 
safe in the knowledge that they will be supported so long 
as they carry out the duties for which they have been chosen. 
And last and most important, we must better equip our law¬ 
makers of the future. Through our schools we must devel- 


Danger Signs 


61 


op a real patriotism, not a mere flag-waving, a hurrah and 
hallelujah, but a patriotism based on knowledge, on the 
power to weigh, to sift and to judge ideas, a patriotism 
founded on a thorough understanding of the principles of 
our government, a patriotism glorying in the splendor of 
our heritage and pledged, through conviction, to carry on to 
generations yet to come, the torch of intelligent, compre¬ 
hending, representative and constitutional government. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUGGESTED 
READING 

American Statesman Series . (Biography) 

Atwood, Harry F . Back to the Republic 

Bancroft, George. . .History of the United States (Vol. 7) 

Beard, C. A.... 

American Government and Politics 
Readings in American Government and Politics 
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution 
Bryce, James. .. .American Commonwealth (4th Ed ., 1910) 

Bradford, Gamaliel. 

Damaged Souls (Article on Thomas Paine) 

Cambridge Modern History 

Carson, Hampton L. 

History of the Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of 
the Constitution. 

Elliott, Edward. . .Biographical Story of the Constitution 

Farrand, M . The Framing of the Constitution 

The “Federalist”. 

A Collection of Essays on the New Constitution as 
Agreed Upon by The Federal Convention. (Best Edi¬ 
tion Edited by Paul Leicester Ford and Henry Cabot 
Lodge.) 

Fiske, John. 

The American Revolution 
The Critical Period of American History 
McLaughlin, A. C ..The Confederation and the Constitution 
Montesquieu . The Spirit of Laws 











Bibliography 


63 


Norton, Thomas James. 

The Constitution of the United States , Its Sources and 


Its Application. 

Sherman, Stuart P. The Genius of America 

Sparks, Edwin E . The Men Who Made the Nation 

Stoddard, Lothrop . The Revolt Against Civilization 


The Nineteenth Century. 

A Review of Progress During the Past One Hundred 
Years—(Reprinted Articles from the New York Eve¬ 
ning Post) 

Trevelyan, G. Otto . The American Revolution 

Von Holst, Hermann E. 

Constitutional and Political History of the United 
States. 

Wilson, Woodrow . History of the American People 

Winsor, Justin. 

Narrative and Critical History of the United States 
(Especially Volume 7) 























library of congress 


0 012 051 519 6 


4 4 






























































